


Steady Hands

by F-117 Nighthawk (F117_Nighthawk)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Burns, Extremis Tony Stark, Fluff, Gen, I made myself cry about Yinsen writing this HE ISNT EVEN MENTIONED, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shaky Hands, The title is a quote from tony about him tho, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 10:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12909996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F117_Nighthawk/pseuds/F-117%20Nighthawk
Summary: Tony’s hands sometimes get shaky. It’s a bit of a hazard in his normal line of work.





	Steady Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Okay LOOK. I was gonna write something happy and fluffy in my everyone-including-JARVIS-is-alive-and-healing-and-happy AU as a way to cope with THE TRAILER AAAAA but then I saw a gif set that was titled something along the lines of “Tony + trauma to his left arm” and this,,,slipped out instead. It’s still vaguely fluffy?

Tony hissed as his left hand slipped down and hit the soldering iron. He jerked the iron away and slammed it into its rack, swearing under his breath. Pushing his stool out, he picked his way across the workshop to the sink and shoved his hand under icy water.

He glared at his hand that betrayed him, muttering that it deserved the burn for slipping yet again. Despite being an engineer, Tony’s hands had never been especially steady. Normally they were steady enough for him to do the small, detailed work he needed to, but lately his left hand had been acting up in weird ways. “U,” he called, “finish that boot please?”

The bot beeped an affirmative and trundled over to the workbench he had been working at. Dum-E appeared at his side with the first aid kit; he patted the bot with his not burned hand and took the kit.

“Tony?” Rhodey’s voice filtered over the shop’s music.

“Over here!” he yelled, making a motion for FRIDAY to turn the music down. He picked a bandaid out of the first aid kit and wrapped it around his finger, then left it for Extremis to do its work.

Rhodey clanked over and looked him up and down. “Burn? You get it under cold water?”

“Yes, Rhodey-Bear, I do know how to treat a burn, I’ve gotten them too many times. How are the legs?”

“Still working it out a bit, I haven’t dared try any staircases, but I can jog around the compound.”

Tony hummed an acknowledgement, focus turned back to his hand. He raised his hands to his chest and gripped his left wrist with his other hand and stared at his hand. It was visibly shaking, likely not from adrenaline from the burn.

“You sure you’re okay?” Rhodey said, concernedly looking between his face and hands.

Tony went with the truth, for once. “My hand’s been shaky. It’s not normally enough to interfere with working, but sometimes it acts up.”

Rhodey hesitantly reached forward and grabbed his arm. Tony let him, moving it closer to his friend and watching as Rhodey inspected him intently. “What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. How long has your arm been doing this? Is it both?”

“It’s just the left one. I don’t know the first time I noticed it. Definitely after Afghanistan, most likely after New York, probably before Sokovia? My left arm’s had way more damage done to it over the years than my right, somehow. I bet that’s part of it.”

At this Rhodey pushed Tony to turn and grabbed his right arm as well. He looked between the two, still with his scanning-the-sky-for-enemies face. Tony quirked his lips and let Rhodey do what he wanted. “You do have more scars on your left than the right, but none of them really seem like they’d be affecting nerves or anything that would cause intermittent shakyness.”

“It’s been broken several times since then, and twice before that, along with thousands of cuts and bruises. Extremis can’t fix everything.”

“Mmm, I still don’t see anything that would cause tremors. Unless it’s not physical related....”

Rhodey looked up and caught Tony’s eyes. Tony looked away from him at Dum-E. “....There was a lot of shrapnel in that arm.” Tony saw Rhodey purse his lips and his eyes soften in his peripheral vision and instinctively braced himself for an avalanche of pity, before remembering this was Rhodey. Rhodey never treated him like fragile glass in need of protection.

“FRIDAY, when did he come down here?”

Tony made a noise of protest, but FRIDAY answered anyway: “0219 this morning, Colonel.”

“Do you happen to know if this has a correlation with PTSD flare ups?”

“Records suggest it does.”

Oh. That... actually made some sense. How he hadn’t thought about it before he had no idea, but here he was. Shaky hands were normal for him directly after a bout, but he’d never made the connection between lingering adrenaline and activated Extremis and his left hand betraying him.

“Alright, come on, you’re coming upstairs.”

“Wait, what? No! Why! I’m fine!”

“Did you eat breakfast? Know what, don’t even bother answering that. Let the bots finish up what you were doing and make lunch before Vision tries.”

Tony winced as he recalled the last time Vision tried to make food. “Yeah, okay, I’ll come up and make sure we’re not all subjected to your military food or whatever Vision calls food.”

“Hey, my military food isn’t bad.”

“It’s not good either,” Tony snorted. He kicked parts out of the way and led Rhodey towards the elevator. “I’ll take my omelets over what either of you cook, thank you very much.”

**Author's Note:**

> Good things about Infinity War trailer:  
> BUCKY  
> TONY  
> bad things:  
> MY SONS ARE HURT
> 
> AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA  
> (interpret that as either excitement or pure terror idk which it is either)  
> Feel free to scream at me about infinity war


End file.
